There are several reasons for taking the year 2350 as a
turning point in the history of Mesopotamia. For
the first time, an empire arose on Mesopotamian
soil. The driving force of that empire was the Akkadians,
so called after the city of Akkad, which Sargon
chose for his capital (it has not yet been identified but was
presumably located on the Euphrates between Sippar
and Kish). The name Akkad
became synonymous with a population group that stood side by side
with the Sumerians. Southern Mesopotamia
became known as the "land of Sumer and Akkad";
Akkadian became the name of a language; and the
arts rose to new heights. However, even this turning point was
not the first time the Akkadians had emerged in
history. Semites [whether Akkadians
or a Semitic language group that had settled
before them] may have had a part in the urbanization
that took place at the end of the 4th millennium. The earliest Akkadian
names and words occur in written sources of the 27th century. The
names of several Akkadian scribes are found in
the archives of Tall Abu Salabikh, near Nippur
in central Babylonia, synchronous with those of Shuruppak
(shortly after 2600). The Sumerian king list
places the 1st dynasty of Kish, together with a
series of kings bearing Akkadian names,
immediately after the Flood. In Mari
the Akkadian language was probably written from
the very beginning. Thus, the founders of the dynasty of Akkad
were presumably members of a people who had been familiar for
centuries with Mesopotamian culture in all its
forms.

According to the Sumerian king list, the
first five rulers of Akkad (Sargon,
Rimush, Manishtusu, Naram-Sin,
and Shar-kali-sharri) ruled for a total of 142
years; Sargon alone ruled for 56. Although these
figures cannot be checked, they are probably trustworthy, because
the king list for Ur III, even
if 250 years later, did transmit dates that proved to be
accurate.

As stated in an annotation to his name in the king
list, Sargon started out as a cupbearer
to King Ur-Zababa of Kish.
There is an Akkadian legend about Sargon,
describing how he was exposed after birth, brought up by a
gardener, and later beloved by the goddess Ishtar.
Nevertheless, there are no historical data about
his career. Yet it is feasible to assume that in
his case a high court office served as springboard for a dynasty
of his own. The original inscriptions of the kings of Akkad
that have come down to posterity are brief, and their geographic
distribution generally is more informative than is their
content.The main sources for Sargon's
reign, with its high points and catastrophes, are copies made by Old
Babylonian scribes in Nippur from the
very extensive originals that presumably had been kept there.
They are in part Akkadian, in part bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian
texts. According to these texts, Sargon fought
against the Sumerian cities of southern
Babylonia, threw down city walls, took prisoner 50 ensis,
and "cleansed his weapons in the sea."
He is also said to have captured Lugalzagesi of Uruk,
the former ruler of Umma, who had vigorously
attacked UruKAgina in Lagash,
forcing his neck under a yoke and leading him thus to the gate of
the god Enlil at Nippur. "Citizens
of Akkad" filled the offices of ensi
from the "nether sea" (the Persian
Gulf) upward, which was perhaps a device used by Sargon
to further his dynastic aims. Aside from the 34 battles fought in
the south, Sargon also tells of conquests in
northern Mesopotamia: Mari, Tuttul
on the Balikh, where he venerated the god Dagan
(Dagon), Ebla (Tall Mardikh in Syria),
the "cedar forest" (Amanus or Lebanon),
and the "silver mountains"; battles in
Elam and the foothills of the Zagros
are mentioned. Sargon also relates that ships
from Meluhha (Indus region), Magan
(possibly the coast of Oman), and Dilmun
(Bahrain) made fast in the port of Akkad.

Impressive as they are at first sight, these reports have only
a limited value because they cannot be arranged chronologically,
and it is not known whether Sargon built a large
empire. Akkadian tradition itself saw it in this
light, however, and a learned treatise of the late 8th or the 7th
century lists no fewer than 65 cities and lands belonging to that
empire. Yet, even if Magan and Kapturu
(Crete) are given as the eastern and western
limits of the conquered territories, it is impossible to
transpose this to the 3rd millennium.

Sargon appointed one of his daughters
priestess of the moon god in Ur.
She took the name of Enheduanna and was
succeeded in the same office by Enmenanna, a
daughter of Naram-Sin. Enheduanna
must have been a very gifted woman; two Sumerian
hymns by her have been preserved, and she is also said to have
been instrumental in starting a collection of songs dedicated to
the temples of Babylonia.

Sargon died at a very old age after putting
the grounds of the millitary traditions of Mesopotamia.
The inscriptions, also preserved only in copies, of his son Rimush
are full of reports about battles fought in Sumer
and Iran, just as if there had never been a Sargonic
empire. It is not known in detail how rigorously Akkad
wished to control the cities to the south and how much freedom
had been left to them; but they presumably clung tenaciously to
their inherited local autonomy. From a practical
point of view, it was probably in any case impossible to organize
an empire that would embrace all Mesopotamia.

Since the reports (i.e., copies of inscriptions) left by
Manishtusu, Naram-Sin, and Shar-kali-sharri
speak time and again of rebellions and victorious battles and
since Rimush, Manishtusu, and Shar-kali-sharri
are themselves said to have died violent deaths, the problem of
what remained of Akkad's greatness obtrudes.
Wars and disturbances, the victory of one and the defeat of
another, and even regicide constitute only some of the aspects
suggested to us by the sources. Whenever they extended beyond the
immediate Babylonian neighbourhood, the military
campaigns of the Akkadian kings were dictated
primarily by trade interests instead of being intended to serve
the conquest and safeguarding of an empire. Akkad,
or more precisely the king, needed merchandise, money,
and gold in order to finance wars,
buildings, and the system of administration
that he had instituted.

On the other hand, the original inscriptions that have been
found so far of a king like Naram-Sin are
scattered at sites covering a distance of some 620 miles as the
crow flies, following the Tigris downriver: Diyarbakr
on the upper Tigris, Nineveh, Tall
Birak (Tell Brak) on the upper Khabur
River (which had an Akkadian fortress and garrison), Susa
in Elam, as well as Marad, Puzrish-Dagan,
Adab (Bismayah), Nippur, Ur,
and Girsu in Babylonia. Even if
all this was not part of an empire, it surely
constituted an impressive sphere of influence.

Also to be considered are other facts that weigh more heavily
than high-sounding reports of victories that cannot be verified.
After the first kings of the dynasty had borne the title of king
of Kish, Naram-Sin assumed the title
"king of the four quarters of the earth"
[that is, of the universe]. As if he were in fact divine, he also
had his name written with the cuneiform sign "god,"
the divine determinative that was customarily used in front of
the names of gods; furthermore, he assumed the title of "god
of Akkad." It is legitimate to ask whether the
concept of deification may be used in the sense of elevation to a
rank equal to that of the gods. At the very least it must be
acknowledged that, in relation to his city and his subjects, the
king saw himself in the role played by the local divinity as protector
of the city and guarantor of its well-being. In
contemporary judicial documents from Nippur, the
oath is often taken "by Naram-Sin,"
with a formula identical with that used in swearing by a
divinity. Documents from Girsu contain Akkadian
date formulas of the type "in the
year in which Naram-Sin laid the foundations of the Enlil temple
at Nippur and of the Inanna temple at Zabalam."
As evidenced by the dating procedures customary in Ur III
and in the Old Babylonian period, the use of
such formulas presupposes that the respective city acknowledged
as its overlord the ruler whose name is invoked.

Under Akkad, the Akkadian
language acquired a literary prestige that made it the equal of Sumerian.
Under the influence, perhaps, of an Akkadian
garrison at Susa, it spread beyond the borders
of Mesopotamia. After having employed for
several centuries an indigenous script patterned
after cuneiform writing, Elam
adopted Mesopotamian script during the Akkadian
period and with a few exceptions used it even when writing in Elamite
rather than Sumerian or Akkadian.
The so-called Old Akkadian manner of writing is
extraordinarily appealing from the aesthetic
point of view; as late as the Old Babylonian era
it served as a model for monumental inscriptions.
Similarly, the plastic and graphic arts,
especially sculpture in the round,
relief work, and cylinder seals,
reached a high point of perfection.

Thus the reign of the five kings of Akkad
may be considered one of the most productive periods of Mesopotamian
history. Although separatist forces opposed all unifying
tendencies, Akkad brought about a broadening of
political horizons and dimensions. The period of Akkad
fascinated historiographers as did few other eras. Having
contributed its share to the storehouse of legend, it has never
disappeared from memory. With phrases such as "There
will come a king of the four quarters of the earth,"
liver omens (soothsaying done by analyzing the shape of a sheep's
liver) of the Old Babylonian period express the
yearning for unity at a time when Babylonia had
once again disintegrated into a dozen or more small states